L’utilizzo delle sandboxes normative: una ricognizione comparata delle principali esperienze di tecniche di produzione normativa sperimentali e il loro impatto sull’ordinamento

di Matteo Trapani

SOMMARIO: 1. L’astrattezza e la razionalità tecnica: un percorso bicefalo. – 2. Le indicazioni europee. – 3. Il concetto di sandbox e le sue peculiarità. – 4. Le esperienze statali. – 4.1. La sandbox fintech in Italia. – 4.1.2. … e la sandbox multisettoriale. – 4.2. La sandbox in Spagna. – 4.3. L’esperienza tedesca. – 4.4. Le Zone di Sperimentazione in Portogallo. – 4.5. Le sandbox in Francia. – 5. Conclusioni.

Technological evolution determines several changes in the interactions between private companies and public bodies and on the institutional framework that they apply.  All this has therefore highlighted a twofold necessity: a regulatory adaptation by default of products characterized by the use of emerging technologies, and the flexibility of rules and their eventual modification as an effect of the technological evolution. The Italian legislator, along with numerous other European countries, tried to afford the consequences of this evolution by searching new forms of law production. Its goal is to consider the technical and technological peculiarities inherent in emerging technologies. Many European countries have embarked on a path of regulating the ways through which experimentation and sandbox clauses can be adopted, by providing for different roles of the public actors involved and uneven levels of rights protection. The paper aims to investigate numerous profiles of these new techniques of regulatory production, starting with the critical issues they may entail in terms of legal certainty and responsibility, the role of the public actors involved, and the effects on the system of sources. This reflection was carried out in the light of the European experiences that have developed in recent years and that allow the continuation of a reflection on the topic.